Josh’s Final Impact February 1, 2013By: Josh Boutwell of Wrestleview.com

Once again the UK crowd puts the Impact Zone to shame. TNA’s first Impact away from Orlando, FL since last year’s UK events went about like last years in terms of the crowd response and it was a big crowd as well. Not having you’re World Champion obviously hurts but the UK crowd didn’t seem to mind too much during the show.

Starting off with the kilt wearing Bad Influence was a funny start and they were able to piss off Brits well enough until the hometown boy, Magnus came out to get a little revenge on Aces & Eights. It made sense for him to do so in front of the hometown but they didn’t have win clean as to give Devon an out. I could definitely see Magnus taking a run at the TV Title.

The best thing about the Joseph Park/Robbie E altercation was Park’s facial expressions, he has really gotten that down especially for a guy that has wore a mask for the better part of 10 years. The match itself was entertaining enough, primarily because of Robbie E’s antics and Park got his first clean victory on Impact.

Aries & Roode were brilliant as always and they formally announced themselves as a team, now they need a name. The UK crowd was absolutely in love with Aries but Chavo was able to rally enough fan support to not get the John Cena treatment completely. They had a pretty solid match and I’m looking forward to the title match. No, I don’t read spoilers so I don’t know how that turns out yet but I’m thinking it might be too early to put the straps on them though sometimes it is best to strike while the iron is hot, and there is no question the best act in TNA at the moment is the Aries & Roode tandem (with Bad Influence right behind them).

The Hogan/Bully Ray segment did absolutely nothing for me though the reaction to Sting was nice to hear/see.

Obviously the biggest news coming out of this show was Dixie Carter’s announcement that TNA is leaving the Impact Zone and taking the show on the road permanently starting in March. This was WAY overdue and pretty much every TNA fan on the planet has been begging for them to get out of Orlando for years. Wish granted so now TNA has to deliver to the fans across the country, not just in that 1,500 seat Impact Zone.

Storm/Sky vs. Tara/Jesse was okay considering Jesse was involved. Storm really has gotten lost in the shuffle in the last few months and they need to refocus with him sooner rather than later. He was the hottest babyface in TNA at one point last year.

I liked the video history of Angle/Anderson inside a cage and it gave the match a little more anticipation, though that should have been shown earlier in the night in my opinion. They had a pretty good Cage Match, not as good as the Lockdown one though, with both guys taking some nice bumps and going back and forth the entire time. The Wes Brisco/Bischoff reveal is probably the most obvious “surprise” reveal in the history of wrestling. I don’t think anyone watching Impact since Aces & Eights started would be surprised that Wes Brisco was one of the members.

Overall the feel of the show just seems bigger when TNA is away from the Impact Zone and maybe part of that is the fact that it always looks the same and feels the same there (as well as the fact that this crowd is far larger than they can ever fit into the Impact Zone). It wasn’t a blow away show but it was entertaining and we got some storyline progression.

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